This invention generally relates to the field of areaways, that is, enclosures for basement windows and the like. Specifically, the invention involves escapable areaway systems and concerns improvements which ease installation and can permit the areaway to float with expansion or contraction of the adjacent soil.
For more than a century, the technique of admitting light through a basement window has existed. This can make the space more desirable and can meet other requirements. To admit the light, an areaway enclosure is often used, that is a structure that acts to hold the earth away from the window or door so that light can be admitted. In spite of the fact that areaways have existed for a long period of time, in the late 1980's a number of advances were made which greatly improved desirability and safety. These changes resulted in, not only improving the structure itself, but also its function such that escape and egress were accommodated. These improvements, detailed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,876,833 and 5,107,640 (hereby incorporated by reference), were so easily accepted that some states have made such egress designs mandatory through uniform building code changes and the like.
In utilizing these improved areaways as well as others, it has become obvious that typical areaway design, that it is a design that is generally fixed to the foundation face of the building, has not always been entirely acceptable. A number of problems have become evident ranging from the challenges of backfilling the areaway structure after construction to the attachment of the areaway structure itself to dealing with expansion, contraction or settling of the soil surrounding the areaway. As a result of these challenges, there has developed a need not only to facilitate installation but also to more appropriately accommodate both the construction nuances and the actual character of the soil typically surrounding such a structure. Perhaps surprisingly, although the field of areaway structures might be considered mature in some regards, prior to the present invention, the needs both during installation and in actual use have not been entirely met.
The present invention shows that with available arts and elements such needs can be easily met through proper design. The fact that others have not, until the present invention, solved these problems may be the result of two general tendencies. First, many areaway structures were not designed to facilitate egress. As a result those types of structures may have actually had vertical boundaries where settling or expansion and contraction of the soil did not present a particularly acute problem. A second tendency is that of the preconceptions of those skilled in the art. In instances where soil settling or expansion and contraction were of concern, prior to the present invention those skilled in the art seemed to accept such problems and not consider that a solution might be possible through proper design of the areaway system itself. The present invention shows that in fact proper design can greatly facilitate not only installation of an areaway structure but also its actual function.